Branch prediction method and apparatus

ABSTRACT

A computer has its programs in instructions and operand descriptors to specify the operands of the instructions. Apparatus for identifying data coherency and encaching requirements and providing access control in a computer system with operands of its instructions specified by operand descriptors is described hereby. In a computer system wherein data items (operands) are represented by operand descriptors that can comprise object numbers, addresses, data types and sizes, vector information and other relevant information concerning the operands, with one bit to identify if the data coherency is to be maintained, another bit to identify if the data is cached, and a field to provide information on the privilege of Read, Write and Execute, and Supervisor or User mode. When an operand is accessed, the respective access control code is checked to validate if any protection is violated, whether caching is activated and whether it is required to maintain data coherency.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of patent application Ser. No. 08/736,326 filed Oct. 23, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,879, issued 18 Sep. 2001, which claims the benefit of priority of the filing date of provisional application No. 60/007,066, filed 25 Oct. 1995. This application also claims the benefit of and priority to provisional application No. 60/306,480, filed Jul. 18, 2001.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is related to digital processing systems, more specifically, concerning identifying data coherency requirement and data caching requirement, with a piece of data residing in one or more different storage elements in a digital data processing system, providing access control code of a piece of data which relates more particularly to digital data processing systems with multiprogramming, and a mixed static and dynamic branch prediction method with correct static branch predictions on both in-loop (during looping) and loop-exit (exit from loops) branch predictions.

2. Description of the Prior Art

A digital data processing system (computer) instruction is composed of an opcode and one or more operands. The operands are data in either registers or memory. There are no qualifiers that explicitly specify the nature and system attributes for the data except those implied by the opcode. In a descriptor architecture computer, the operands in an instruction are specified by descriptors. A descriptor of an operand usually consists of a virtual address of the memory space of the operand, its data type and size, and vector specification if so exists.

To optimize the memory reference performance, operating systems specify if a page of data should be encached or not, so that unnecessary and undesirable data encaching will be avoided. It is also desirable to be able to specify if maintaining data coherency in a multiprocessing system is required. Such maintenance demands exhaustive checking, which creates performance bottlenecks and system complexity, but only a small percentage of data requires absolute data coherency. To provide protection to data, access code is often utilized to limit read, write and sometimes execution accesses to authorized and privileged processes.

At present, to specify a piece of data in a digital data processing system the system attributes such as encaching or maintaining data coherency, and access control of the piece of data, is on page basis through Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) via page table entries in page tables managed by memory management of operating systems. The data coherency is normally assumed to be required in a computer system. The access control on data is normally on per page basis and is implemented in the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) via page tables managed by memory management of operating systems.

At present, in descriptor architecture computers, just like in others, system attributes such as access control on data, caching options to specify if a page of data should be encached or not, and ability to specify if maintaining absolute data coherency in a multiprocessing system is required, are on per page basis and not on individual operands.

The present computers contain branch prediction logic to predict with high accuracy if branching will take place for a conditional branch instruction or not. It is done so with static and dynamic branch prediction schemes. Static methods are based on compilers to generate object codes to identify to the processor if branching is likely or unlikely to occur. Dynamic methods are based on hardware to store histogram of earlier branching and not branching actions, and make an educated guess that branching will be taken or not, for the current conditional branch instruction.

The present invention is an improvement over certain previous computer systems. An instruction consists of an opcode, and indexes of operand descriptors pointing to operand descriptors as a descriptor computer, and a branch prediction scheme.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention disclosed herein concerns features that add to the existing processors, described in the previous section of “Description of the Prior Art”. These features are parts of the computer system HISC: A High-level Instruction Set Computer.

The first feature is the indicator or data coherency flag residing in the operand descriptor that indicates if it is required to maintain the coherency of the data when the data is stored in various storage elements or caches in a processing system. The requirement will typically be accomplished by a method checking the existing data of the address in other storage elements in the processing system, which typically are caches, and buffers. The benefit of this invention is to eliminate the need of such checking for the operands that are specified to have no such need of maintaining absolute data coherency, to minimize the snooping necessary for data coherency. The decision on issuing such data coherency flag is accomplished through programming languages and their corresponding compilers.

There is also an indicator or encaching flag residing in the operand descriptor that indicates if the data is to be encached or not. Encaching means the data will also resides in cache, in order to expedite the accesses to the data. However, there are cases that this facility is not desirable, such as in those cases, the references will be made only once for a long time. This feature is to avoid unnecessary or undesirable caching.

Another invention feature is the access control code in the operand descriptor which indicates the access privilege required in order to be able to perform certain access to the data, together with the required mode of the accessor. The access is defined as read, write and/or execute, and the mode is either supervisor and user. The supervisor mode dictates that only supervisor processes can access the data of the operand if other access code bits permit. A non-supervisor (or user) mode indicates that all processes can access the data provided that other access code bits permit.

The branch prediction of HISC is a mix of dynamic and static branch prediction method. The static part is done through the opcode assignment. In HISC, an instruction consists of a 16-bit opcode, followed by three 16-bit operand descriptors, as shown in FIG. 1. Two bits in the opcode field are used to facilitate conditional branching. The first of the two bits is used to indicate if static conditional branch prediction or dynamic branch prediction is used. The second bit is for static branch prediction to indicate prediction of branching. The compiler will decide if the static or the dynamic branch prediction should be used, and in static branch prediction case, if it is likely or unlikely to branch. Inner loop counting will utilize the static prediction, and the opcode will indicate if it is likely to branch or not. For other conditional branching which will mainly be decision making, the dynamic branch prediction is used. In order to identify the last pass of a loop counting, the Branch Prediction Unit (BPU) of HISC contains a fully-associative array, a loop-exit look-up table, of addresses of static prediction branch instructions of loop counting. There is a special loop-counting instruction in HISC. BPU will put the current branch instruction address into the associative array when it detects the loop-counting instruction and it is executing the second last pass. If BPU encounters a hit in the loop-exit look-up table, it will predict the opposite of the static prediction scheme, since this is the very last pass of the loop. If the addresses overflow the look-up table capacity, the incorrect prediction only impacts the performance. If there is any entry in the array is replaced undesirably, the processor still maintains its system integrity.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of the instruction format of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of the general register format of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of the operand descriptor format of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a method for specifying operand descriptors according to specific embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a method for specifying operand descriptors according to a first alternative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a method for specifying operand descriptors according to a second alternative embodiment of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The following description presents the structure and operation of a computer system incorporating a presently preferred embodiment of the present invention. HISC is a descriptor architecture computer. An instruction consists of an opcode, an index of the destination operand descriptor, and two indexes of the source operand descriptors, as shown in FIG. 1. For example, to execute an ADD instruction, the two pieces of data pointed by the two source operand descriptors are added together, and the result is stored in the storage pointed by the destination operand descriptor.

A descriptor of an operand usually consists of a virtual address of the memory space of the operand, its data type and size, and vector specification if so exists. HISC extends the operand descriptor to include system attributes: to allow enabling of cache for the data of the operand, to specify if data coherency is to be maintained, and to specify access control code for the data of the operand, as shown in FIG. 3. For performance purpose, any operand descriptor index less than 64 will refer directly to the corresponding general register, shown in FIG. 2. HISC also employs a mix of static and dynamic branch prediction method, with a hardware mechanism to correctly predict the end of a loop counting.

A. Access Control

When a program is compiled, the object code consists of three parts: the instructions, a table of operand descriptors, and the data pointed by the operand descriptors. The operand descriptors are a linear array, indexed by the operand descriptor indexes in the instructions. When the object code is initially loaded into the HISC system, the operating system will compare the attributes specified for individual operands in the object code, with respective templates of the corresponding files to verify if access privileges are being violated. If so, the process will be terminated for protection violation.

There are four bits in the access code in an operand descriptor: supervisor mode, read privilege, write privilege, and execute privilege. The supervisor mode requires supervisor processes to access the data, coupled with the other privilege specifications. Read, write, and execute privileges are also specified to grant minimum access privileges necessary for the work the processes have to perform.

Before an instruction is allowed to execute, its operand descriptors must be loaded into a special fast storage with speed comparable to a data cache, which is named operand descriptor cache. When the program is being executed, any time a memory reference is made on an operand, the access code in the corresponding operand descriptor cache will be checked against the memory operation to verify if there is any violation in access privileges. If access is violated, a protection fault results, and the program will not be allowed to continue its execution.

FIG. 4 illustrates a method for checking operand data accesses using operand descriptors and terminating a process if access is violated.

FIG. 5 illustrates a method for checking operand data accesses using operand descriptors using a predetermined template according to specific embodiments of the present invention.

B. Encaching Option and Data Coherency Option

The operand descriptor cache also contains encaching and maintenance of data coherency. Every time a reference is made, the data cache will honor these two 1-bit flags, and will or will not perform encaching of the data and maintain data coherency according to the flags. The data cache will check with the corresponding entry of the operand descriptor cache for the action declared.

Because an entry in the operand descriptor cache dictates the action and access checking, and different programs may have different operand descriptors for a certain piece of data, different programs can have different settings for these cache features and access privileges, even though they share the identical piece of data in memory concurrently. Therefore different programs or users can be granted different privileges for the identical piece of data concurrently.

FIG. 6 illustrates a method for checking access of operands using operand descriptors and further including an indication of whether operand data should be cached according to specific embodiments of the present invention.

C. The Improved Branch Prediction

In many present computers, the operand sizes are of a fixed length, normally a word-length, depending if it is a 32-bit or a 64-bit architecture computer. In a program, information is often of variable lengths, such as a name or an address, and it often requires inner loops to process the piece of information. The HISC architecture allows variable length and long operands. Therefore it requires less inner loops than others. Loop counting is highly predictable, and the fits very last pass of a loop is important enough to warrant special handling.

The branch prediction of HISC is a mix of dynamic and static branch prediction method. The static part is done through the opcode assignment. In HISC, an instruction consists of a 16-bit opcode, followed by 16-bit operand descriptors, as shown in FIG. 1. Two bits in the opcode field are used to facilitate conditional branching. The first of the two bits is used to indicate if static conditional branch prediction or dynamic branch prediction is used. The second bit is for static branch prediction to indicate prediction of branch taken or not taken. The compiler will decide if the static or the dynamic branch prediction should be used, and in static branch prediction case, if it is likely or unlikely to branch. Inner loop counting will utilize the static prediction, and the opcode will indicate if it is likely to branch or not. For other conditional branching which will mainly be decision making, the dynamic branch prediction is used.

In order to identify the last pass of loop counting, the Branch Prediction Unit (BPU) of HISC contains a fully-associative array, a loop-exit look-up table, of addresses of static prediction branch instructions of loop counting. When the special loop counting instruction is executed, the data referred by the Operand Descriptor 1 (OD1) is decremented by one, and BPU will put the current branch instruction address into the associative array if it detects this loop-counting instruction and that it is executing the second last pass. If BPU encounters a hit in the loop-exit look-up table, it will predict the opposite of the static prediction scheme, since this is the very last pass of the loop, and is different from the previous in-loop branches. If the addresses overflow the loop-exit look-up table capacity, the incorrect prediction will only impact the performance. If there is any entry in the array is replaced undesirably, the processor still maintains its system integrity. A loop counting instruction is:

-   -   BZ Branch via OD0 if OD1 is zero.         -   Decrement by 1 the data referred by OD1.

The dynamic part is done with a two-bit branch history table in BPU. Each entry of the table contains the previous two branch actions, with each bit indicating either that branch was taken or that branch was not taken. If the preceding two branches have the same action (branch taken or not taken), then the same action is predicted. If different, then the opposite of the last action is predicted.

action _(i-2) action _(i-1) action _(j) (predicting) . Taken Taken Taken Taken Not taken Taken Not taken Taken Not taken Not taken Not taken Not taken

Therefore, the action predicting is the same as the second last action. 

1. In a computer system, including memory for storing instructions and operands, a central processor able to fetch and decode instructions, a method of performing branch prediction for an instruction comprising: specifying in data associated with said instruction whether static branch prediction or dynamic branch prediction should be used; for static branch prediction, specifying in data associated with said operand whether said branch is predicted taken or not taken; operand descriptor indexes operand descriptors, and memory for storing operand descriptors, and further wherein in the operand descriptor memory, storing an indication of loop count value for a loop count instruction; at execution of a static prediction loop counting instruction, modifying data stored at an location indicated by a a first operand descriptor; if a result of said modifying indicates an end of loop, storing a current program address in a fully-associative loop-exit look-up table; and thereafter, predicting a branch result opposite of a specified static branch prediction if an instruction address matches one stored in said loop-exit look-up table.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: wherein said predicting is performed in a Branch Prediction Unit (BPU).
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: in a central processor, making branch type determinations and static branch predictions for individual instructions when a program is compiled.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein said computer system is a high-level instruction set computer system.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein branch prediction data indicates a selection from a group comprising: static-taken: static-not-taken: and dynamic for an individual instruction.
 6. The method of claim 1 further comprising: providing a plurality of operand descriptors, an operand descriptor including an address; providing that loop instructions with static predictions use one or more operand descriptors for predicting a second to last loop count; for loop instruction, keeping track of loop passes using said operand descriptor by checking said operand descriptor for a loop termination value and adjusting a value indicated by said operand descriptor at a loop pass when a loop termination value is not found.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein two bits are used for said data to facilitate conditional branching.
 8. The method of claim 7 wherein a first bit indicates if static or dynamic branch prediction is used.
 9. The method of claim 7 wherein a second bit indicates for static branch prediction if a branch is predicted taken or not taken.
 10. The method of claim 7 wherein said data is interpreted using logical equivalents of the following data codes: 00: static branch not taken; 01: static branch taken; 10: dynamic prediction based on branch history; and 11: reserved.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein for an individual instruction, a compiler determines if static or dynamic branch prediction should be used and for static branch prediction if it is likely or unlikely to branch.
 12. The method of claim 1 further comprising: identifying a last pass of a loop instruction using a loop-exit look-up table of instruction addresses.
 13. The method of claim 1 further wherein: dynamic prediction is performed using at least a two state branch history table, each entry of said table indicating previous branch actions; wherein if preceding branch actions are substantially identical, (e.g., branch taken or not taken), then a same action is predicted; wherein if preceding branches actions are not substantially identical, then an action different from a preceding action is predicted.
 14. The method of claim 13 further wherein: two preceding actions are examined, such that an action predicting is the same as a second to last action. 